Monday Night Football

Close your eyes and picture Hank Williams Jr. dancing infront of flashing lights with all his rowdy friends, and askyourself: “Are you ready for some polling?!”Molly Scudder, an assistant professor of politicalscience specializing in political theory and democraticdeliberation, sees the election coverage from majoroutlets as primarily a summary of statistics aboutwhich candidates are leading the polls, rather thansubstantive coverage. Instead of delving into issues such asimmigration policy or national security, media outlets werehappy to report on the quip of the day and how it mightaffect polling numbers.

That approach leaves voters with little real information
to use to make decisions, she says. “When we cover
elections as we would a horse race, democracy really
suffers,” Scudder says. “Focusing on who is or isn’t in the
lead distracts us from the debates we should be having.

And if we’re not having those debates, we’re getting awayfrom democracy.”educated people, which isn’t Trump’s audience. But whenpeople retweet Trump at twice the rate of Clinton, he’sdoing better. He’s got more traction.”Trump’s impromptu reactions seemed to resonatewith the audience, even when his posts were inaccurate orvenomous. “On social media, you can’t let the truth get inthe way of a good story,” Matei says. “In terms of gettingpeople energized, he has a very loose, immediate, in-your-face, provocative language that suits social media andgenerates more ‘likes’ and ‘shares.’”But that comes at the cost of filters and fact checkers,a purpose journalists have often served, reviewing thestatements of candidates.

“So many different media voices were out there
presenting a narrative of the candidate. But not all of them
uphold the professional standards and ethics of political
journalism, where there’s research into a particular
candidate and fact-checking,” Brownell says. “When you
control your own message and don’t go through a fact-check, you can perpetuate falsehoods.”